


Strait-Laced

by PhoenixFalls



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, corsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:27:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27690671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/pseuds/PhoenixFalls
Summary: Watson confiscates a corset belonging to his flatmate.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 58
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Winter 2020





	Strait-Laced

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yakichou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakichou/gifts).



Holmes had taken Watson’s favorite cravat again.

Watson tossed Holmes’ room thoroughly, uncovering in the process: three firearms; the corpse of a pigeon, bludgeoned; a jar of cyanide, indifferently stoppered; a wide and varied assortment of handcuffs; and the cufflinks Holmes told him he had pawned when funds ran low three cases ago. He did not find the cravat.

Watson expanded the search to the sitting room. There he uncovered: a thoroughly rotted plate of biscuits; five pipes; several of Mrs. Hudson’s tea cups and saucers, mismatched; a jade figurine decorated with gold filigree and chips of ruby, which Watson wrapped carefully and placed in the safe; another jar of cyanide, corked and waxed and nestled in a locked box; and finally, wrapped in a woman’s corset, the cravat in question.

Glancing at his watch and cursing at the time lost, Watson grabbed the cravat and rushed back to his room to finish dressing. He took the corset with him, resolved to bury it so deep in his wardrobe Holmes would be equally frustrated when next he had need of the garment.

* * *

Months passed, and though Watson never forgot the presence of the corset in his wardrobe, he did stop anticipating Holmes’s invasion in search of the garment.

Holmes was in a black mood, had been since the last case ended with Lestrade cuffing the criminal while Holmes was running down a jewel smuggling operation that ended up being something of a red herring. He had since been playing the violin at all hours, filling the rooms with noxious smoke, and generally making their home as inhospitable as possible.

Watson had chosen tonight to retreat to his club, as he had nearly every one in the past fortnight. As he dressed, he noticed that his waistcoat and dinner jacket did not create as smooth a line as they had in the past. He had been partaking of too many of Mrs. Hudson’s biscuits of late.

Seized with a devilish impulse, Watson dug through his wardrobe until he unearthed the corset. As he had suspected, when he held it against his torso he found that it was sized to Holmes’s measurements, which meant it should fit Watson nicely.

It was awkward tightening the laces by himself, but Watson managed via contortion, his unusually flexible shoulders, and the simple expedience of tying the ends of the laces to a doorknob and walking away from them. The corset was almost severe in its black simplicity, but Watson thought it looked rather fetching, not over-burdened with frills or lace. And when he donned again his waistcoat and jacket, his figure was returned to its usual trim.

He strode quickly through the sitting room, in the hopes of giving Holmes little time to notice anything out of the ordinary; but this proved unnecessary, as Holmes was wearing the vacant, half-lidded expression of a recent morphine application.

Watson may have slammed the door behind him on his way out.

* * *

After several hours of smoking cigars and quaffing wine, Watson returned to Baker Street somewhat the worse for wear. He was leaning heavily on his walking stick, and grateful for the corset under his shirt granting his posture some simulacrum of his usual military bearing.

There was a single lamp lit in the sitting room, and a shadowed figure slumped in the chair next to it. Watson hesitated, mind slowly churning through whether he ought to go over and blow it out, risking waking Holmes; as he pondered, the figure leaned forward abruptly, all indolence gone in a flash.

Holmes’s eyes were dark and glittering in the lamplight, intent on Watson as they had not been in weeks.

“There is something different about you tonight, John.”

Watson blinked, and suddenly Holmes had crossed the room and was standing toe to toe with him.

Clearing his throat to buy time, Watson eventually ventured: “It’s just my new watch chain, Sherlock. Surely you recognize it – you were the one who gave it to me.”

Nimble fingers parted Watson’s jacket to pluck the watch and chain from his waistcoat pocket. Holmes did not even glance at them before tossing them backwards onto the settee.

“No, you have been wearing that rather pointedly each of the last eleven days.”

Hands, broad and warm even through several layers of cloth, followed the path of the earlier fingers and continued, pushing Watson’s jacket back off his shoulders and causing it to fall to the floor. Watson’s blood began to warm, and he allowed his lips to quirk slightly upward.

“I parted my hair to the left tonight. Perhaps that is the change?”

Holmes tutted, and began delicately pushing the buttons of Watson’s waistcoat through their buttonholes.

“You part your hair to the left 42% of the time, John. That hardly qualifies as a change.”

The waistcoat followed the jacket, as did Watson’s collar and the cravat that started this chain of events months before. Only the single thin layer of shirt separated Holmes from the discovery he was after.

“I do believe they have changed the formulation of my aftershave again. Trust your nose to have picked that up from across the room.” Feeling very daring, Watson reached up to tweak the organ in question with one finger.

Holmes reared back; then his expression turned feral, savage grin flashing in the gloom before he closed the last of the distance between their bodies, pressing Watson back against the door and latching onto the pulse point just under Watson’s jaw. He began to suck the sort of claiming mark Watson would be hiding with high collars for days.

He paused to say only, “No. Try again.”

Watson was too busy to reply, tilting his head back to grant Holmes better access and fumbling his own hands into Holmes’s dressing gown.

Instead of attacking Watson’s shirt next, Holmes skimmed his hands down Watson’s sides, pausing to undo his braces, then swiftly opened his trousers. Watson’s prick was straining the front of his drawers, and Holmes seized it through the cloth.

Watson gulped a breath and rolled his hips into the grip. Still, he forced his voice to lightness. “Rest assured, that remains the same as always, if somewhat neglected of late.”

Holmes growled, and in an instant had Watson flipped and pressed chest-down against the arm of the settee. His shirt was pushed up, his trousers and drawers pushed down, and the laces of the corset burned as Holmes tangled his fingers in them and pulled tight.

“This, John. This does not belong to you.”

Watson opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a slick hand slathering petroleum jelly between his thighs.

“You couldn’t have warmed that first?”

Holmes grunted as he thrust his prick where Watson reflexively tightened for him. “Thieves do not deserve such consideration.” Nonetheless, his hand reached round to encircle Watson’s prick again.

Neither man had breath to spare for further pleasantries. They had not fucked like this since the early days, rough and semi-dressed, abusing the furniture; but in those days Watson would not have dared don a corset simply to get a rise out of Holmes. Advancing age and increased intimacy brought with it certain perks: John had far more options for breaking Sherlock from his black moods than young Watson did.

As they sprawled, spent, across the settee by the guttering lamplight, Watson congratulated himself on a smart tactic well-executed.


End file.
